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Benefits, Cuts, Disability, Employment Support Allowance, ESA, esaSOS, Politics, UK Government, WCA, Welfare, Welfare State, Work Capability Assessment
[I consider it a privilege, albeit a sad and profoundly bitter one, to publish this guest post on behalf of a good friend of mine. Please read, respond and share. Thank you.]
Almost exactly 4 years ago in January 2009 I wrote a blog post detailing how I would end my own life rather than lose my income under threat of the government’s welfare changes making ESA a virtual impossibility. I don’t have a blog any more but here I am four years later writing about almost the exact same situation; all that’s changed is the detail. The basic message is the same: the welfare changes are going to kill me.
On the 28th January 2013, there will be changes to the way people are assessed for Employment Support Allowance [ESA]. These have been advertised as “minor” changes; however they are not minor to those of us who will be affected by them.
Firstly, there will be complete separation of physical and mental health difficulties. This means that if your chronic pain gives you depression, it will be ignored. If your mental illness means you can’t communicate effectively, it will be ignored. Likewise if your medication for mental illness causes physical effects, they will be ignored. If your medication for physical illness causes cognitive impairment, it will be ignored.
Secondly, there is the extended “imaginary wheelchair” idea. If you’re blind but don’t happen to have a guide dog, the assessor will say you could get on with things perfectly well if you had a guide dog and your blindness will be ignored. If you have no arms they’ll say you should be wearing prosthetic ones and it will be ignored.
This also equates to forced medication. If you aren’t taking a particular medication yet the assessor thinks you should be – please remember these are assessors that could be physiotherapists or non-practising nurses – you will be deemed fit to work and told you should be taking the meds. No matter how those meds would affect you, what other difficulties they cause or your own personal choice.
I’m going to explain how this will affect me. Not to elicit sympathy or whine, but to put into context what the changes might mean in practical terms in the hope that readers will be as outraged as I am scared and want to help do something about it.
The separation of mental and physical health is ludicrous. Part of my ESA entitlement is based on my communication difficulties. I can’t always speak, write, phone, email… Yes this is one blog post with reasonably lucid train of thought, but you don’t see all the abandoned writings that fizzle out after 4 lines of gibberish or don’t even make it out of my head. Yes I can talk to one trusted person on the phone – sometimes. But the calls have to be planned and are often declined. Talking to strangers simply doesn’t happen. When you have voices going round your head stealing your thoughts and inserting new ones and repeatedly telling you you’re a piece of shit, small talk at the checkout just doesn’t happen. Communicating effectively with a line manager would be impossible [and I am speaking from past experience].
However, because the communication descriptors lie in the physical section of the Work Capability Assessment [WCA], I will be deemed to be able to communicate perfectly and therefore fit to work. There are more of the physical descriptors that are directly affected by my mental health; there’s one example.
Next, the idea that any therapy or medication I’m not currently having will be seen as the cure and I’ll be immediately found fit for work on the basis that I “could” be taking/using it. There is an antipsychotic that works reasonably well, symptom wise. The reason it works so well is it puts me to sleep for 16 hours a day and zombifies me the rest of the day to the point I stop functioning and therefore stop caring about voices and don’t have the energy to self-harm. I had a choice between taking it and sleeping for 16 hours straight, or not taking it and taking something that doesn’t work as well but doesn’t turn me into a duvet monster.
Under the newest changes, I’d be found fit to work on the basis that I would be expected to take meds that made me sleep for 16 hours a day. I wonder when I should work in the remaining eight-hour period? Or maybe I could work in my sleep, doorstops are expensive these days and a sleeping mental would probably prove to be effective both in cost and functionality.
I’m currently waiting for CBT; I expect to be waiting for about 5 more months at least. I intend to take up the therapy, however the waiting list prevents me at the moment. Still, according to the assessor, if I were receiving CBT I’d be able to function therefore I’ll be found fit to work even if I’m still on the waiting list.
And it goes on. How can you separate physical and mental symptoms? Physical symptoms make you feel like crap; mental symptoms affect what you are able to do practically. So many different therapies and medications are out there, but actually taking the meds and getting access to the therapy is a different matter entirely. Not to mention that no two people are alike and a therapy or drug that works for one person might not work for another.
Once again I find myself planning a suicide for all the wrong reasons, because the government doesn’t want me to live and I refuse to allow them to kill me first.
I’ve taken the following from Sue Marsh’s blog Diary of a Benefit Scrounger. She lists what we can do to try to reverse this latest attack. Please read her blog which tells the story of these changes in more detail.
Email your MP (you can search by name or constituency here).
Talk to friends and family and share links to her blog post.
Sign #WOWpetition and call on the government to think again. And ask all of your friends to sign too.
[More info at A Latent Existence and Ekklesia. Oh, and read this too.]
Joanna said:
This is economic genocide and I know many of us won’t survive it. They seemed to have passed this without us even knowing about it.
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molly said:
Yes they advertised these changes as “minor” in order to hide them better.
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Sam Barnett-Cormack said:
They’ve continued to stick to the argument that they are minor clarifications of existing policy.
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Joanna said:
they know this is major
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Narky said:
I think this is one of the hardest things – that it passes by the general public virtually unnoticed.
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Joanna said:
http://www.mind.org.uk/blog/8189_esasos-help_fight_changes_to_the_esa
No comments being accepted on Mind, presumably they intend to do nothing
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Carrie (@EscapingEntropy) said:
They’re too scared of criticism to accept comments.
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Joanna said:
but they’re not scared of the potential deaths..
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molly said:
They want us to die, it’s easier for them when we’re not around
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Joanna said:
I know government want all us useless eaters dead for sure but I had hoped that the charities might still want us around even if only to take advantage of all the free stuff they get out of us
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Narky said:
Hi everyone. For my own personal reasons I would prefer if we steer clear of the topic of Mind, if you don’t mind (pardon the pun). Government, benefits, media, how our mental friends and others will be affected by the government’s cuts, all fine. But what Mind thinks or doesn’t think, does or doesn’t do, is not directly the topic of this blogpost and I’d rather bypass this area for now.
Thank you. xxx
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molly said:
It’s your blog, your rules. But charities [not just Mind] have as big a part to play in the public perception of what is right and proper where benefits are concerned as the Daily Mail does.
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Joanna said:
I’ve just been told that on You and Yours or R4 this lunchtime it came out that people with mental health problems are amongst those most badly affected by the changes,
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Narky said:
Then perhaps we could broaden the topic? Always keeping in mind what someone would think/understand if they stumbled upon this blog with no background knowledge. Education is key to a lot of things. What are charities doing that is good? What are they doing that is bad? Why is it good? Why is it bad? If they want you to die, explain why you believe that to be the case. And so on.
Thanks. 🙂
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molly said:
Cool 🙂 Sometimes anger and fear takes over
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Narky said:
Of course it does. This situation is full of anger and fear.
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Carrie (@EscapingEntropy) said:
I fucking hate this Government and I fucking hate the ignorance of the majority. If it doesn’t directly affect them they don’t care. This has to change.
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Joanna said:
totally agree, people just don’t want to know unless it affects them but at some point it probably will one way or another
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Narky said:
Not just that people don’t want to know, but that they are drip fed shite by the media and believe it. Small blogposts like this are fighting against a massive machine which essentially serves the government. And people swallow it whole.
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Joanna said:
this is true too Narky, I see/hear it every day from an electrician to the bus stop, everyone believes it or says it’s all ‘them’ but not their dad!
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Joanna said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/17/atos-attack-emotional-commons-debate?CMP=twt_fd
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Joanna said:
From B&W:
CHANGES TO THE WORK CAPABILITY ASSESSMENT (WCA)
A large number of changes to the WCA, the test for ESA, come into force on 28 January. There is one positive change in relation to people receiving treatment for cancer. But the vast majority are revisions that have been introduced to overturn rulings in the upper tribunal that were favourable to claimants.
We will be updating our WCA guides when the changes come in – though there may be a small delay whilst we wait to see if the ESA50 form is going to be changed as well.
And the legislation that introduces the changes is available here.
Click to access uksi_20123096_en.pdf
How the fuck can they legally overturn the ruling of a tribunal????????????
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Sam Barnett-Cormack said:
Where a bit of law is unclear, tribunals get to interpret it. The Government don’t like that interpretation, they can overturn it by actually clarifying the law the other way. This changes the law, which nullifies the precedent from the tribunal.
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Joanna said:
well explained
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One Epic Holiday said:
I’ve only just found out about these new “minor” changes and I’m sickened by them. I’m a nurse and I’ve had severe ante-natal and post-natal depression in my past.
How can our government think these measures are at all HUMANE!? Did they even consult medical panels consisting of doctors from varying specialities, including psychiatrists?
I despair I really do. I can understand too why you’d think of going to the measure you plan to. I feel for everybody who has genuine reasons to get benefits. The rogue claimers and the greedy bankers and this government have let you down. You don’t deserve to live “life on the line” where you have constant worries like this – about survival.
It makes me sad, angry and horrified. I just can’t explain truly how upset it all makes me.
I so hope they will see sense. Wise up to the backlash. Thanks for blogging your case and helping with enlightening others.
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Joanna said:
The BMA have already said the process isn’t fit for purpose and it costs taxpayers millions in appeals, this is ideology. I got a phone call today from a company asking me if I wanted to make a Will, my voices had a field day with it. I did wonder if it were really from the government..
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Joanna said:
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Phil Groom said:
It’s the old “bricks without straw” syndrome as first practiced in ancient Egypt when the slaves started to play up: starve them into submission! Force them to work by cutting their resources! Cut back on their support and they’ll have to go out and find jobs; throw them onto the streets and they’ll have to find somewhere to live — never mind that there aren’t any jobs, that there isn’t anywhere to live. Just cut, cut, cut until the streets run with blood and the vampires feast under their neon-lit signs: Barclays; HSBC; RBS…
Tell me, Mr Cameron, if you ever visit this place: who destroyed the economy? The poor? The disabled? The mentally ill? But you make them pay the price. Is this it: the true face of “Compassionate Conservatism”? You whitewashed tomb, full of festering bones!!
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David Young said:
There is another side to this argument. Welfare is reformed because welfare is abused. If nobody ever attempted to cheat the benefits system, if the taxpayer were never required to pay for the work-shy, and if the NHS were not required to treat lifestyle-choice-related conditions, there would be more money in the pot. That would be a good position from which to argue that the system was not broken and therefore did not need fixing. However, the operative word is ‘would’.
The world does not revolve around any one single issue.
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Narky said:
You are right. The welfare system is abused. I urge you to read this: http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/incarceration.html. One quote in particular:
“Again, we treat 200 people as though they are guilty to catch the one cheat, we do not accept the one cheat in order that 200 people may feel secure and supported.”
The fraud figures are tiny in comparison to the way it is represented in the media. “Cheat, work-shy, lifestyle-choice-related conditions” – the words you use are parroted over and over again and mean very little. I work, I pay my taxes. And I am glad that my taxes help to look after the most vulnerable in society. The rich should protect the poor. I am rich because I work and receive a good wage. Therefore, it is right that the money I earn helps those in need, who cannot work.
I would rather my money be put into a system that helps all, accepting that some take advantage when they should not, than have no system to help anyone, even those who deserve it.
The world should revolve around looking after each other and living as one community. But it does not because too many of us are labelling the others as work-shy, egged on by our government which is charged with creating a secure state for all, by our government which is charged with protecting the vulnerable. I hope you read this post written by my friend again, with more compassion in your heart next time.
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David Young said:
Perhaps you could learn the life skill of not putting words into people’s mouths. I am merely presenting what the principal counter argument is. You might like to avoid jumping to conclusions about how much compassion a person you have never met does or does not have just as a result of their doing that.
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Narky said:
I have not jumped to any conclusions, but I have drawn conclusions based on the words I have read. I will continue to do so and make no apology for it. I do not think I put any words in your mouth – in fact, I quoted your own.
I know the counter argument and I know that it is flawed. I also know that people are living in desperate poverty and dying right now because of that flawed counter argument.
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David Young said:
‘Dying’: now there’s a weasel word if ever I saw one. Is that because ‘and have died’ would be a falsifiable statement demanding a concrete source, while ‘dying’ could be interpreted quite loosely, and could effectively mean almost anything?
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Phil Groom said:
David, my friend, it hurts to have to say it, but you’re coming over remarkably like a troll here… You’re entitled to your opinions, of course, but as someone who hasn’t lived in the UK for donkey’s years, I’m not convinced that you any right to be airing them.
For you, this may be an academic exercise; for those of us who see our friends’ lives being destroyed by a cutthroat government which treats the poor and vulnerable like scum, this is all too painfully real. Reality-check, brother.
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Joanna said:
Don’t feed the troll
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David Young said:
Phil, it may come as a surprise, but welfare of any kind does not exist in a vacuum. The original idea behind it is based on an expected result, and if something other than what had been expected occurs, it is often the case, as in many areas of life, that the original idea is called into question. Sometimes that means that the practice itself changes in some way. The changes may often be implemented by people who are accountable to more than one single-issue group.
Of course, anyone is at liberty to set up a blog and add just above the comment box ‘Please only post if you are going to agree with me’, or ban contributions from IP addresses outside the UK. At the moment, this blog has not adopted either measure.
Is calling anyone who questions the prevailing opinion a ‘troll’ the replacement for last decade’s internet-forum custom of calling them a ‘fascist’? And would I be correct in assuming, Phil, that you would never express an opinion on anything that happens outside the UK?
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Joanna said:
the vast majority hold the propaganda view now, because the country has been swamped with it, this blog represents the views which are silenced within mainstream media because welfare related suicides are denied by this government. This blog does not have to justify it’s views to you – you don’t like it – go read the Daily Mail where lots of people will share your views.
watch and learn
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Molly said:
People are dying and people have died. People are dead. People have ceased living and stopped breathing and have had funerals where their dead bodies have been cremated or buried. A quick google would show you so many cases of death you wouldn’t have time to read them all. Stop trying to find fault with words and listen to the meaning behind them.
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David Young said:
People are [insert rumour here] and have [insert rumour here so I don’t have to provide any sources]. A quick Google search will show you so many cases of [insert rumour here] you would not have time to read them all, although you might have time to find at least one source, which makes it odd that I haven’t bothered to put one here. Stop trying to find fault with my inability to provide any example of [insert rumour here] that I would be prepared to stand by as an example of my or someone else’s point, and just accept everything I say with the blind lack of critical thinking that would make even a creationist blush.
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molly said:
David, my apologies. I wrote that reply early on in my day from my phone and didn’t have the brainpower nor bandwidth to find you sources. I had hoped you’d have a look yourself; like I said, a simple google would’ve taken you to dozens of links and you wouldn’t have waited all day to find out that I was telling the truth.
Here are just a few links, I hope you will realise that what Narky and I have said about the deaths is NOT false rumour and is actually fact. I guess I’m so used to speaking with people who know this stuff by heart because it’s been close to our hearts for longer than you even realised it’s an issue, I’m not used to having to provide evidence. However here it is in bucketloads. Or coffinloads, if you like.
Calum’s List: trying to list and name everyone who’s died as a result of welfare reform or been found fit to work and died straight after:
http://calumslist.org/
Peter’s List: Similar showing the extreme conditions people are forced to live in and extreme measures some people go to without actually dying:
http://calumslist.org/peters-list/
Independent link, speaking about the hundreds of people who’ve died and thousands more forced to live in extreme conditions [no heating or food]
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/paralympics/paralympic-sponsor-engulfed-by-disability-tests-row-8084799.html
It also lists, in case you haven’t heard, just a few of the multitudes of failures about the WCA, from ignoring medical evidence from claimants’ own doctors to assessors who simply lie on their reports.
32 people a week die after being found fit to work
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/31/disabled-people-benefits-panorama
[I believe that figure has now doubled but having trouble finding links – anyone reading got a link to the 73-dead-per-week source please? I know it’s out there, just a bit braindead trying to find all this death for David’s perusal]
FOI information act used to find numbers of deaths
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2012/04/32-die-a-week-after-failing-in.html
More dead people from the DWP’s own stats:
Click to access incap_decd_recips_0712.pdf
MPs agreeing that the assessmentws are killing people:
http://www.parliament.uk/edm/2012-13/687
This is not to include the inevitable deaths that will come in the future from simply having no income. No income, no home, no life. Literally.
Is that enough death for you? If you want more death, you’re going to have to find it yourself, I’m not looking at any more death on your behalf, it’s making me feel hopeless and scared. But at least I’ve given you a starting point from which to read about lots and lots of dead people. Very actually dead, not rumour, not hinted at by careful use of language. DEAD.
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David Young said:
OK, here’s http://calumslist.org/
http://www.courtnewsuk.co.uk/?news_id=26081
Suicide, not government.
http://www.scotsman.com/news/author-s-suicide-due-to-slash-in-benefits-1-1367963
Suicide, not government.
http://www.thisishampshire.net/news/9095159.Jobseeker_took_own_life/
Suicide, not government.
http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/north-east-news/evening-chronicle-news/2010/08/05/body-found-in-river-wear-is-leanne-chambers-72703-27003699/
Found dead, no evidence of foul play by government.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jan/07/mother-suicide-welfare-state
Suicide, not government.
http://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/Woman-drowned-drain-upset-health-check/story-12927176-detail/story.html
Found dead, no evidence of foul play by government.
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/investigations/2011/02/sick-who-gives-atos.html
Died of a previously existing heart condition.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/stress-of-tory-benefits-tests-killed-129934
Died of a previously existing heart condition.
http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/coventry-news/2011/11/08/bedworth-suicide-pact-couple-found-lying-side-by-side-92746-29739580/
Apparent suicide, not government.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1267953/Job-seeker-Vicky-Harrison-commits-suicide-rejected-200-jobs.html
Suicide, not government.
http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?262469-help-me-take-Atos-and-DWP-to-court
Suicide, not government.
http://menmedia.co.uk/salfordadvertiser/news/s/1456956_devastated-salford-mum-killed-herself-over-redundancy-blow
Suicide, not government.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/tfl-manager-plunges-to-his-death-at-hq-after-hearing-of-redundancy-6366811.html
Apparent suicide, not government.
http://www.dpac.uk.net/2011/05/cuts-kill-the-story-of-a-sister-driven-to-suicide/
Suicide, not government.
http://www.derbyshiretimes.co.uk/news/local/fit_to_work_dad_had_heart_attack_1_4228295
Died of a previously existing heart condition.
http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/burnley/9550982.Benefits_man_found_hanged__inquest_heard/?action=complain&cid=10129599
Apparent suicide, not government.
http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/norwich_man_killed_himself_over_back_to_work_fears_1_1358116
Suicide, not government.
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/local-news/birmingham-dad-dies-of-heart-condition-187961#ixzz1zfFDFYhd
Died of a previously existing heart condition.
http://www.formbytimes.co.uk/news/formby-news/2012/05/17/dad-s-fight-for-justice-after-son-died-six-weeks-after-his-benefits-were-cut-100252-30986134/
Died of pneumonia, not foul play on the part of the government. Also suffered from the self-inflicted condition of alcoholism, also no fault of government welfare policy.
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2012-09-13a.532.0
Died of a previously existing medical condition.
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/atos-killed-my-dad-says-boy-1411100
Heart attack. No evidence of foul play by government.
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/Lincolnshire-man-mental-health-issues-hanged-day/story-16478870-detail/story.html
Apparent suicide, not government.
http://www.welshfocus.co.uk/2012/06/the-death-of-karen-sherlock/
Suspected heart attack. No evidence of foul play by government.
There is a difference between saying that someone has died, and saying that they died ‘as a result of welfare reform’.
I don’t know if Callum’s List is supposed to be the flagship, but if it is, it does not say much for the rest of the fleet.
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David Young said:
Molly, there is a reply to that but the blog owner does not want replies that contain sources.
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Narky said:
Your comment was caught by my spam filter because it has multiple links in it. Molly’s was caught by that same spam filter and I approved hers earlier today. That is a standard setting on blogs.
Your comment has now been approved, but if you make one more snide remark like that I will ban you from commenting permanently.
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David Young said:
I presume ‘drip fed shite by the media’ is not a snide remark then.
The words ‘double’ and ‘standards’ spring to mind.
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butterflywgs said:
David Young, read and absorb Narky’s response to you. Those who defraud the system are a tiny, tiny minority; people don’t generally decide they don’t fancy working, for a magnificent £99.15 a week (current WRAG ESA rate).
Plus the ‘lfestyle choice’ argument is ridiculous – taken to its logical conclusion, it means that no-one would get free NHS treatment, unless they live like a monk/ nun. If someone breaks their leg playing rugby, wasn’t it their ‘lifestyle choice’ to engage in a risky sport? If someone is in a car crash, wasn’t it their ‘lifestyle choice’ to drive? I cycle, if I get knocked off my bike and injured, should I get free treatment – after all, it is my ‘lifestyle choice’ to cycle, knowing that it has risks?
Funny, seems it’s only the ‘lifestyle choices’ of poor and working class people that others feel entitled to sit in judgement on.
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David Young said:
There are plenty of people who want no taxpayers’ money to go towards sports-related injuries, DIY mishaps or dental care, to give just three examples. It’s a paranoid fantasy to think that it is only ‘poor and working class’ lifestyle choices that they resent paying for.
The whole purpose of the NHS in the UK was that it would progressively make the nation healthier and thus become cheaper to operate. In other words, it was a compassion-neutral argument. The same is true for all benefits: they were originally sold to the electorate on purely economic grounds. If the economic argument no longer holds for any given benefit, it should not come as a surprise that those administering it reassess the terms on which it is given.
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Joanna said:
Money is made out of the NHS to our detriment, it is being stripped:
http://www.michaelmeacher.info/weblog/2013/01/tax-avoiders-must-be-prohibited-from-the-nhs/
Business, banks, and shareholders thrive making money hand over fist with tax evasion which dwarfs the entire welfare budget.
Money is made out of sick, disabled and dying people through; assessments and tribunals which cost millions [so clearly driven by ideology not economics] food banks, charities [gagged by their contracts and funders], employers who pay chicken feed wages [tax credits subsidize them], landlords [which include MP’s] who charge extortionate rents for basic accommodation which costs taxpayers millions in Housing Benefit [not for mansions, most claimants in work and paid directly to landlord]. There is no meaningful assistance and “reasonable adjustments” for disabled people to get into work, and those who do manage it find any support they had immediately cut off – it’s sink or swim.
The poor, unemployed, sick and disabled pay the price because they are viewed as expendable. ‘Workfare’ is the destination for all those unable to secure employment and those in a better position sneer and say that people must simply work and educate themselves out of that position.
This ideology will impact on everyone [except those who have secure homes and substantial incomes and can afford the best of health and social care]
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Joanna said:
Interesting how no one ever referred to welfare fraud/shiving/shirking in every other sentence until this Coalition came into power. The stats have always been there, so why is it only an issue now? Answer: because this government mounted the most successful propaganda campaign since the 1930’s with a media they mostly control.
They even use the same language and make the same assertions that were made by 1930’s fascists such as sick and disabled people being responsible for the country’s economy and for that “stock” to not be sustainable.
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Joanna said:
“…class based abuse of unemployed, sick or disabled people is now so common it almost passes without notice, even in the ‘liberal’ press”.
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Narky said:
David, you say “suicide, not government”, or “died of a previously existing heart condition”, thereby also meaning not government, I suppose. What would you expect from a death in order for you to lay the blame at the government’s door? Do you expect Cameron himself to shoot people? Where does the government’s responsibility for lives and deaths lie?
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David Young said:
The government can be blamed for someone’s death when someone in the employment of the government has been found by a court of law to be legally responsible for their deaths. Interestingly enough, Narky, just saying that a death is the government’s fault does not pass muster in a court of law.
When someone kills themselves, it is quite obvious who has killed them. The clue is in the word ‘themselves’.
Of course, there is one alternative which has not only been suggested but also implemented. It was once popular to regard people with mental illness as being so incapable of making any decision that they had to be housed in asylums. Part and parcel of abandoning this approach is the abandoning of the idea that any form of self-harm that a mentally ill person performs is the government’s or someone else’s fault.
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molly said:
No-one said david cameron personally held a gun to these people’s heads, but that’s what is happening in a figurative sense to those people who took their lives. I guess you just don’t understand suicide much. If you did you’d know and understand that financial worries are a huge factor, losing your own home or the possibility of that is a huge factor, the endless forms and tests and reading lies written about you on your own paperwork is a huge factor… you get the idea. You lose everything and be constantly told you’re a scrounger, scum of the earth, worthless piece of crap with fewer rights than a prisoner and then tell me it wouldn’t impact on your mental health or wish to continue living in anyway.
Are you seriously suggesting that it’s NOT wrong that people have died after being found fit for work? That that does not indicate the process is flawed in any way? I suppose if you had a terminal heart condition you’d go on working right until your final breath was gasped so you’d never get called a scrounger, right? You said yourself that some of those people died from pre-existing conditions – THAT’S the whole point!
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Phil Groom said:
There’s blindness, and there’s wilful blindness; and I get the impression in your case, David, it’s the latter: not an inability to see beyond the suicides to their causes but a stubborn unwillingness to do so. Like a dog with a bone, you’ve backed yourself into a corner and are too bloodyminded to let it go, irrespective of whether or not there’s any meat left on it.
Did you ever read my post, It isn’t suicide: it’s murder at 5 Quid for Life? Or my follow-on, It isn’t suicide, it’s murder: Part 2 – Too close to home: Langford man hounded to death over council tax dispute?
Read, mark and inwardly digest. Reflect on what’s happening, on why people are committing suicide. Do you genuinely wish to exonerate the government of blame? Do you genuinely think that the way the government is carrying out its welfare reforms is a good thing? Or are you just behaving like an asshole for the hell of it?
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Joanna said:
DY is like many of the trolls whose comments you can read within the public comments sections of the Guardian. Individuals such as these are very well known for what they do, some spend so much time endlessly coming back to argue minutiae and semantics through to actively suggesting people who are not economically productive or disabled might be better off relieving the world of their existence – you do wonder whether they are employed to do this. As I’ve said – don’t feed the troll and personally, I would ban this person from commenting because as I’ve said before, right wing trolls have space to speak their fascism within the entire media and are backed by almost the entire government, they can do their stuff everywhere with impunity. Whereas sick and disabled people, supporters, carers and rights workers are largely silenced and these blogs are a space for people to speak the unspeakable and to offer support and discuss. No blogger is obliged to listen to and engage with the crap which surrounds us daily, not when it’s clear the individual is really not wanting to understand another position and is being an arsehole for the hell of it. Call it positive discrimination if you like. Maybe it’s time a few blogs didn’t welcome and entertain the trolls. I for one refuse to converse with him any further.
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David Young said:
I almost won the office sweepstakes there. I was just two posts away from predicting who would use the word ‘fascism’ first in the 12:00 to 17:00 CET Sunday slot. There are still two side bets on the use of ‘Nazi’ and ‘Hitler’.
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molly said:
if the cap fits…
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David Young said:
Phil, asking questions which do not yield consistent answers is not wilful blindness but critical thinking. Referring to someone’s suicide as ‘murder’ without that being the conclusion of a court of law is, interestingly enough, a crime. The good news is that it is not a crime you are likely to be prosecuted for, partly because the state sometimes finds better things to do with its resources.
In any case of a person taking their own life, apart from those in which a court of law has found additional criminal liability elsewhere, I hold no one apart from the deceased responsible for their death. To try and crowbar suicides into the debate about welfare reforms suggests that more substantial arguments are thin on the ground.
I’m more than willing to blame various governments for a lot, but I’d be cautious of accusing them of killing, let alone murdering, anyone without something more than a strongly held opinion and some anecdotes to back me up. I would also suggest that name-calling is a trifle immature.
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molly said:
Twat.
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Phil Groom said:
Molly, I think that’s an insult to all the twats in the universe…
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Joanna said:
anyhow back to discussion folks, Johnny’s blog is really excellent check out his recent posts on these related issues: http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/the-truth-behind-philip-henshers-bike-riding-slur/
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Narky said:
David Young has been banned from commenting on this blog, not because of what he said so much as how he said it (cliché, whatever). People can either be polite on this blog, engaging in respectful dialogue or they can go away.
Joanna, cheers for the link. Let’s go read!
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Andy Stewart said:
David Young appears to be a Tory Troll. Defensively and repeatedly stating – Suicide, Not Government – in relation to the 26 Welfare Reform RELATED deaths on the Calums List, plus the 1,666 Welfare Related Reform deaths after ATOS and the DWP declared the 1,666 soon to be deceased FIT FOR WORK on Peter’s List.
David Young, if – Suicide Not Government – is your flagship argument, I suggest you jump on that other Tobacco Troll bandwagon that for years said smoking was good for you, then fell back to the position smoking had no PROVEN harmful effects. All that and all your current – Suicide Not Government rhetoric has been binned.
Fortunately for the disabled currently being euthenaised and as appearing on Calums List, there does appear to be a CUMMULATIVE legal remedy.
The BBC may not have reported the 3 hour Parliament Debate with CROSS PARTY condemnation of ATOS, but the courts are likely to be taking a keen interest in due course – according to Calums List.
As far as David Young goes, probably better not to feed Trolls or that other turgid specimen, the Disability Denier.
Regards,
Andrew.
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werehorse said:
The practice of institutionalisation was replaced by “Care in the Community”. If that policy is failing because of structural problems in the NHS and cuts to funding, is that that the fault of the mentally ill? Should they just be left to fend for themselves?
I regularly come across people on the internet who are doing well for themselves and seem to believe that anyone who isn’t simply doesn’t have sufficient work ethic. They don’t recognise that not everyone has the health, the skills, the education, the opportunities and the family support to succeed in this economic system.
I have been looking for jobs recently to see if there’s anything I might be able to manage. I found *one* cleaning position. The advert stated they were no longer responding to people individually because of the high volume of applications. So where are all these skivers and shirkers?
If you are going to value people solely in terms of their economic productivity that logic surely arrives ultimately at euthanasia as the only rational solution.
Sign me up. I don’t particularly want to live in a society that no longer seeks to protect the vulnerable.
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Phil Groom said:
The good news, werehorse, is that although those people make the most noise, there are many of us who do care, who value people as people and not merely as cogs in some sort of economic machine. So hold on tight, mate: Britain has not yet degenerated into a ‘David Young’ state.
And since I’ve mentioned him… the trouble with people like David is that they’ve lost an essential part of what makes us human: the ability to empathise with other people. For them, discussions like this are a purely academic exercise, pursued without any emotional connection: those with whom they interact are not recognised as human beings but are seen as targets for point-scoring. Stuck in a student debating society mindset, for people like David, the issue itself is irrelevant, the only thing that counts is demolishing your opponent: pushing and provoking until they snap, and then — like an adrenalin hit — there’s that sudden rush of childish glee that we see in his ‘office sweepstakes’ comment. They are emotional cripples, living in their own pseudo-intellectual world of supposed ‘critical thinking’, deceiving only themselves. They are, more than anyone else, fit only to be pitied.
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Joanna said:
I empathise with your feelings Werehouse, the times I have felt oh just give me the means for a decent way out right now, you don’t want me here and I don’t want to be here.
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Joanna said:
http://diaryofabenefitscrounger.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/what-dla-has-meant-to-me.html
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Joanna said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/22/charities-public-policy-funding-fears
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Joanna said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/21/universal-credit-benefits-work-longer
this makes it impossible for single people with ill health/disability to work part-time if placed under pressure to not claim working tax credits and housing benefit by working more hours. So how does this support the ‘slivers of time’ approach as espoused by people like Rachel Perkins?
It also ignores the fact that it might not be possible to secure more hours even if viable for the person.
It also ignores the fact that many people working full-time at minimum wage still need housing benefit because they can’t afford their [non-mansion/within reasonable traveling distance otherwise lose more money on travel] extortionate private rent.
So how are sick/disabled people with limited capacity to work supposed to get into employment when it’s being made increasingly clear that it will have to be full-time.
As for freelance workers, that’s always variable, if you can’t secure more what are you supposed to do?
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Joanna said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/jan/23/private-health-contractor-999-calls
imagine if Atos were running the service..
999, hello emergency services what service do you need?
Ambulance please
What seems to be the problem?
Asthma attack, peak flow 150
Ok, I just need to take you through our triage assessment, now if you had a nebuliser would you be able to breathe more easily?
Er yes
And do you have £10 and a cab company phone number?
Yes [cough wheeze]
I’m sorry you don’t qualify for an ambulance, you’re fit to travel to A&E by yourself, now start using your imaginary nebuliser..
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molly said:
This WILL happen one day!
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molly said:
if anyone thinks we deserve treatment like this I politely request they stop identifying as a human being right away.
http://www.katebelgrave.com/2013/01/these-people-are-not-shirkers/
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Joanna said:
Diagnoses self with this PD:
Left-Leaning Personality Disorder
DSM-V features
* Morbid interest in social justice
* Disruptive asking of awkward questions
* Definition of socialism doesn’t include anybody in New Labour
* Intrusive thoughts about punching coalition politicians in the throat
* Can’t stand Stephen Fry
Main therapeutic strategy is to achieve a state in which the response to “nothing’s going to change” isn’t a feeling of hopeless despair
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molly said:
Hahaha “can’t stand Stephen Fry” FINALLY a diagnoses that talks to me!
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Joanna said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/25/welfare-policies-dangerous-to-draw-suicide-link
good comments after a dubious article.
MIND did a survey and found the 51% of people going through ATOS became suicidal – they didn’t publicise it
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